In what increasingly appears to be a case of mistaken identity, a Dutch developer has threatened to release the source code of the SHAtter exploit, depriving the jailbreak community of a valuable tool. After the developer of TwitPanic, @iHaz3, had his site brought down apparently by a DDOS attack, he threatened to release the SHAtter source as some kind of revenge, but has since held off on carrying out the threat.
The story can be traced following @iHaz3's Twitter feed. TwitPanic.com was crashed by what the developer believed was a DDOS attack set up by @ih8sn0w after he and @iHaz3 had "issues." @iHaz3 then tweeted "TwitPanic.com is attacked by a organized DOSS hit......next week SHATTer will be posted on twitter." The jailbreak community reacted with confusion, since SHAtter - an exploit allowing unsigned execution of code in the S5L8930 bottom that could only be defeated by a new hardware design - was developed by pod2g and p0sixninja of the Chronic Dev team, not iH8sn0w. It could be that @iHaz3 was confused because the iH8sn0w hacker he believed responsible for the DDOS had previously provided the SHAtter source to him.
As the day rolled on, @chronic engaged @iHaz3 in conversation and attempted to explain that @iH8sn0w had nothing to do with SHAtter, and so releasing it would do nothing to hurt him while at the same time burning a valuable exploit which has been held in reserve since @geohot came out with limera1n. Eventually, @iHaz3 agreed to a cooling-off period, which would expire sometime today, but he has since heard from his hosting company that they have the identity of the attacker and are pursuing legal action. So, hopefully, all this will blow over.
E2EK1EL
Rogers and Fido start new policy: Will unlock your device for $50
Looks like unlocking cellphones is starting to become a trend. Recently TELUS announced they will unlock various devices for a fee starting in 2011… but today both Rogers and Fido have stepped up with a new “Handset Unlocking Policy”.
According to the internal doc it states that “Effective December 14, we’ll be changing our policy on device unlocking to allow customers the opportunity to unlock their devices for a $50 fee. This new policy applies to phones, smartphones, and rocket sticks depending on the manufacturer’s restrictions. Customers purchasing a new device or qualifying for a HUP are also eligible to have their previous phone unlocked.”
Of course there are some stipulations to having your device unlocked. If you’re on a contract you’re not going be the happiest person: Your account must be in good standing and you “Have paid the un-subsidized / no term cost for the device at least 30 days prior OR have finished their Commitment Period”.
Of course there are several other 3rd party options to unlock your device… Progress right?
E2EK1EL
Still want Flash on your mobile devices?
(As one of Roger's ads stated, finally a Tablet with Flash)
Still want Flash on your mobile devices?
Remember, I stated Flash would give your device very poor performance and kill your batt? (Taken from Steve Jobs)
(I'm a load of and have no idea what I'm talking about)
Look carefully @ the GIF ads on the sides, they were still loading while the video was trying to load.
Everything Steve Jobs stated about Android are true, especially the "fragmented" aspect of their OS. Yes the playbook can handle flash also, but it's very sketch @ Beta stages of the OS and that's the 2nd gen of the Tablet hardware.
E2EK1EL
^^^
Speaking of Flash and the iPad
Cyrus King
quote:
Originally posted by E2EK1EL Rogers and Fido start new policy: Will unlock your device for $50
Looks like unlocking cellphones is starting to become a trend. Recently TELUS announced they will unlock various devices for a fee starting in 2011… but today both Rogers and Fido have stepped up with a new “Handset Unlocking Policy”.
According to the internal doc it states that “Effective December 14, we’ll be changing our policy on device unlocking to allow customers the opportunity to unlock their devices for a $50 fee. This new policy applies to phones, smartphones, and rocket sticks depending on the manufacturer’s restrictions. Customers purchasing a new device or qualifying for a HUP are also eligible to have their previous phone unlocked.”
Of course there are some stipulations to having your device unlocked. If you’re on a contract you’re not going be the happiest person: Your account must be in good standing and you “Have paid the un-subsidized / no term cost for the device at least 30 days prior OR have finished their Commitment Period”.
Of course there are several other 3rd party options to unlock your device… Progress right?
Am on contract with FIDO until August 2011, bought a 3GS full price UNSUBSIDIZED from Fido when it came out so I dont have to extend my contract.
Called FIDO to explain to them my situation and that i fully OWN the 3GS.
They said that becuase I was still on contract, They cant do it.
This doesnt make sense becuase I OOOOOOOOOWN the ing phone, its not being subsidized. They said they will look into it and call me back on friday.
These are reasons why I will NEVER sign up to another contract in my life with these pieces of . I will threaten them with all my power when I have to power to leave.
Cribby
My theme for this winter:
_
RobSt*r
quote:
Originally posted by Cribby
My theme for this winter:
_
That lockscreen is money!
E2EK1EL
Editorial: RIM seems to be as lost as my BlackBerry
Editorial: RIM seems to be as lost as my BlackBerry
(A Crackbery's POV of jumping ship)
The only way to open this editorial is to admit something I've been rather shy about on the pages of Engadget: I've been an avid BlackBerry fan and user for about six years now. I mean a real addict -- the kind who wakes up each morning looking for a blinking red LED, the kind who's refused to give up push email and BlackBerry Messenger in favor of more powerful, polished, and progressive mobile operating systems like iOS, Android, and webOS. In fact, when my Verizon contract was up last year I opted to get a Curve 8530 instead of the Motorola Droid or Palm Pre -- to say nothing of making the leap over to AT&T for the iPhone.
There were lots of reasons I didn't want to give up my BlackBerry, but five days ago I lost that very Curve in a San Francisco cab. Then coincidentally, a day later I saw RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis speak at the D: Dive Into Mobile conference, where he almost embarrassingly avoided every question about the company's immediate smartphone strategy. I had always known that RIM was behind the curve (always a great pun!), but I also always had hope that the company would catch up with modern smartphones of today. Sadly, watching Mike dodge questions on the D stage took that hope away from me -- it's crystal clear that RIM won't have a solution to compete with those powerful smartphones anytime soon. So, what happens to a BlackBerry diehard like myself? Where do I go from here?
Before I get to the rather tragic events of the last week, it's only right to explain why I clung to a BlackBerry -- or "that dinosaur" as a certain clever, bagel-eating analyst repeatedly referred to it -- for so long. Yes, I endured countless inquisitions on why I refused to give up my Curve over the last couple of years, but I defended my attachment to the mobile platform with what became a prepared list of reasons. First, there was the form factor -- I absolutely love a good physical keyboard and I just couldn't imagine giving up the portrait keyboard for a soft keyboard. (I was able to type close to 50 words per minute on my old Curve 8330, after all.) And while I could get a physical keyboard on Android or webOS devices, I couldn't also get the messaging components of the BlackBerry OS -- and by that, I really mean BlackBerry Messenger. I'm more than aware that many don't understand the appeal of BBM (notably nearly all of my fellow Engadget editors!), but most of my closest friends and family have BlackBerrys, and the native messaging client absolutely destroys text messaging in terms of speed and capabilities. (I could spend a good 500 words on why BBM is so great, but that's really an entire editorial and RIM ad campaign unto itself.) There's also BlackBerry's unmatched push email speed -- many times I've reached for my BlackBerry to read a message long before it hit my laptop screen. Of course, there were other reasons to love my BlackBerry as well: good call quality, reliable networks, and yes, BrickBreaker. But BBM and the keyboard remained at the top of my list.
I figured that in a year or so, I'd buy a new BlackBerry -- one that would have all the features I love but also be faster, better at surfing the web, include real touch support, and have a broader selection of apps.
But, obviously, I had to make a lot of sacrifices for those features, including speed, app selection, and ease of use. How many times did a friend with an iPhone or an EVO look up a bar or restaurant using Google Maps at least a minute faster than me? At least 100. How long would I wait for my phone to reboot after installing an app? A solid four to five minutes without fail. How many times did I open my laptop and jump on 3G to look at a website, just to avoid having to wait until it would load on my phone? Believe me, more than I care to admit. Yes, I made lots of sacrifices for BBM and that keyboard, mostly because I believed RIM would eventually improve the OS and the hardware that powered it. I figured that in a year or so, I'd buy a new BlackBerry -- one that would have all the features I love but also be faster, better at surfing the web, include real touch support, and have a broader selection of apps.
Instead, RIM's given me the BlackBerry Torch as the answer to the iPhone and Android. I use the word "answer" lightly -- even a hard-core fan knows that the Torch isn't competitive, at least not in comparison to the other smartphones on the market. The Torch does provide a slightly better browsing experience, and BlackBerry 6 has been polished a bit, but still the general experience is sluggish and the applications are nowhere near as robust as the ones for iOS or Android. And when you look at it from a purely hardware perspective, the Torch offers a smaller screen, lower resolution, and slower processor than much more powerful phones on the market, yet costs nearly as much.
A major industry question suddenly became very personal: a year and a half after buying the 8530, was there really no solid smartphone option in the market from RIM?
Which brings me up to today. With my Curve lost somewhere between my hotel and San Francisco airport, a major industry question suddenly became very personal: a year and a half after buying the 8530, was there really no solid smartphone option in the market from RIM? Obviously, I knew the answers to that question -- I'm a tech editor after all -- but it wasn't until I saw Lazaridis speak a day later that I saw the writing on the wall for me and the company: RIM doesn't have a competitive smartphone now, nor will it have one any time in the near future. The mobile shackles I'd chosen to live in weren't going to be clipped off anytime soon -- in fact, it looked like the pain was only to get worse.
This must have been quite a performance by Lazaridis, right? It was, and I highly suggest you read the liveblog or watch the full interview. RIM's co-CEO muddled through explaining the company's mobile strategy, and while he stressed that it continues to see global growth, especially in 2G markets, he focused primarily on the upcoming PlayBook tablet. It was almost comical to watch Lazaridis respond to questions about the company's handset business with information about the upcoming tablet and skirt questions about its US smartphone business. Now, don't get me wrong, from what I've seen of the PlayBook, it looks absolutely awesome -- the QNX OS looks incredibly snappy and the interface is well laid out and extremely eye-catching -- but that's a tablet. What about the tablet that I want to put in my pocket, as one smart journalist asked Lazaridis at the conference? When will I get the power and apparent robustness of the PlayBook in a smartphone? Not for a while, Lazaridis let on. And that's where RIM seems to be totally adrift at the moment -- it's working on a powerful operating system for its seven-inch tablet without offering any hope that that work will pay off on its smartphones.
It's confusing -- RIM seems to be creating its own mobile class system of smartphone serfs and tablet nobles, if you will. Phones with an outdated OS have been given slight sprinkles of modern day functionality while the PlayBook receives fresh, multicore software with an innovative UI and apparently great performance. And while the plan is (apparently) to put QNX on higher end handsets once dual-core processors are ready, Lazaridis spent much of the interview defending BlackBerry 6 and avoiding offering any real timeframe on when we'd see QNX on phones -- even though dual-core chips like the Tegra 2 are already appearing on phones like the LG Star. It was all a bit hard to decipher, but the strategy seems to be: keep the current smartphone platform in the market at the moment, build out QNX on the PlayBook for a Q1 2011 release, work to bring the OS down to dual-core smartphones once the power consumption is right, and then finally enter the high-end smartphone game for real -- a timeframe that seems to stretch out at least a year if not more. That strategy might makes sense on a few levels, but Apple, Google, Microsoft and Palm aren't going to sit still while RIM gets to work, and I need a phone now.
E2EK1EL
Rogers, Fido offering iPhone unlocks for $50
Bringing this up with your local AT&T rep is liable to get you laughed out of the store, but things are a little different up in Canada where one of the major carriers is now offering an unlock service -- for a fee. If you're on Rogers (or its budget subsidiary, Fido) and you're a customer in good standing with an iPhone that you've previously purchased from them and you're not currently in a contract, you can pay $50 Canadian -- that's $50 US, for those of you not up to speed on current conversion rates -- to have Rogers' customer service reps flip a switch that'll cause the phone to magically unlock the next time you restore it while connected to iTunes. Considering the restrictions, they should probably be offering the service for free, but it's a start.
VDub
For all of the RBC customers...
It's live right now in the app store...
COME AND GET IT!!!
I've just used it, and it's pretty good...
It's definitely not optimized for retina (I'm sure the update will come) but the functionality is just fine...
_
